


a wasp on the length of my arm

by viscrael



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anxiety, Keith and Shiro are Adoptive Siblings, M/M, Miscommunication, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-07
Updated: 2017-04-07
Packaged: 2018-10-15 22:43:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10558930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viscrael/pseuds/viscrael
Summary: Keith and Lance have been friends since elementary school.This surprises most people when they first see them interact. Keith acts like he hates Lance, and Lance acts like they’re rivals, but in reality they joined at the hip in second grade and never separated, and maybe it’sbecausethey’ve known each other so long that they act the way that they do. Lance is annoying, and Keith isn’t afraid to tell him that, and Keith is a hothead, and Lance isn’t afraid to call him out on it. It’s a weird equilibrium, a give-and-take that Keith has yet to experience with any of his other friends, but it works so well for them that Keith tries not to think too much about it.--alternatively titled: the klance childhood best friends au where keith isnt sure what they are anymore and lance is bad at talking about his feelings





	

**Author's Note:**

> ive been working on this for a BILLION years (not rlly. more like 2 months) and i finally realized. that it is probably best uploaded as several chapters? probably only 2 or 3, although im not 100% sure which yet. anyway. heres the childhood bffs au
> 
> **WARNING** for anxiety and at one point descriptions of a panic attack! if ur uncomfortable with that it starts at "The front door slammed shut behind him" and ends where it says "It took a few minutes, but after Keith had finally calmed down[...]"
> 
> also the headcanon that keith is trans comes into play a lot not necessarily for the actual plot but as backstory so there r flashbacks and a lot of casual talk abt him being trans bc im horrible and absolutely love trans dude keith (also casual trans girl pidge is there but its not super explicitly talked abt)
> 
> **EDIT:** this was written BEFORE allura was confirmed a teenager, so there is background shallura. since im no longer comfortable shipping allura with shiro i intend to go back and fix that eventually. but as of now thats how it is, so tread with caution if youre uncomfy with that or anything. thanks!

“Scale of one to ten,” Lance says, piling salsa on his chip, “how much would you rather be playing Halo with me right now?”

Keith wrinkles his nose but admits reluctantly, “...Nine.”

“It’s not _that_ bad here.”

“It’s pretty bad.”

Lance thinks about it for a moment, surveying his surroundings as if he’s seeing them for the first time. In reality, they’ve been at this formal event for an hour already, and Keith has done nothing but wish he were at home sleeping the whole time. He doesn’t like dressing up for a multitude of reasons, something vital to tonight, and he hates being in crowded public places. Those two together don’t equal a particularly fun time for him. At the very least he isn’t suffering alone. Lance was dragged along too.

“Yeah, never mind,” he finally agrees. “I’m just surprised you admitted it that quickly.”

Keith shrugs and reaches for a chip. He’s glad that, despite the formal atmosphere and attire, he’s still allowed simple pleasures like chips and salsa.

When Keith was in middle school, Shiro had tried to convince him to join marching band. At the time, Shiro had been in eighth grade with Keith in sixth, and he had decided that band was _so_ much fun that obviously his little brother had to experience it too. Keith declined; he didn’t have a musical bone in his body, and he couldn’t stick with an instrument for more than two days before getting frustrated and quitting. But despite Keith’s refusal to join him, Shiro kept with it, joining his high school’s marching band, and then eventually his college’s too. Keith had attended many a band concert and competition in his seventeen years on earth, but he’s always hated the formal ones the most. It isn’t technically _required_ that he attend, but it’s to show support, and Keith considers himself, if little else, a supportive little brother.

Lance, however, is here because Allura convinced him. She’s Shiro’s girlfriend and the first chair flutist, and a damn fine one at that; she’s had first chair and stayed first chair since she was in middle school. She’s older than Shiro by half a year, but that never stopped Lance from trying to woo her when she dropped by Keith’s house to see them. After he figured out that not only was she not interested in him, but also harboring a huge crush on Keith’s brother, he left it alone. Once he stopped flirting with her every time she entered the room, they became quick friends, and now she’s the one he’s attending these band banquets for.

Keith can’t complain about that. It means he doesn’t have to sit through these alone, at least.

“How long before they start calling names, do you think?” Lance asks, leaning towards Keith as if to keep those around them from hearing. Keith doesn’t know what he’s keeping it a secret for—they’re not talking about anything incriminating—but Keith follows suit, leaning in too.

“I don’t know.” He checks his phone. “It’s almost seven. Soon, probably.”

“Wanna ditch afterwards?”

He frowns. “We came here for them. It’d be rude to leave before we even get to say hi.”

“I mean _after_ we say hi and congratulate them and stuff,” Lance says. “C’mon, you know they’re just gonna go back to Allura’s apartment after this. I can promise you they won’t miss us.” He accompanies this statement with some eyebrow wiggling, and Keith shoves Lance’s face away from him halfheartedly, Lance laughing all the while.

“Stop being gross.”

“I’m not being gross, I’m being honest. So, yay or nay?”

“...You already know the answer, stop looking so smug.”

Lance doesn’t wipe the (smug) grin off his face. He raises his eyebrows and leans back from Keith, finally putting space between them. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Does this mean you’ll play Halo with me?”

“No, Jesus Christ!”

“You said _nine_! On a scale of one to ten, Keith, you can’t say _nine_ and then take it back!”

“It was only in the hypothetical, that wasn’t me agreeing to play with you.”

Lance whines about Keith’s refusal up until they’re sliding into Lance’s car after congratulating Shiro and Allura. When they get back to Lance’s house, though, Keith can’t help but give in.

 

\--

 

Keith and Lance have been friends since elementary school.

This surprises most people when they first see them interact. Keith acts like he hates Lance, and Lance acts like they’re rivals, but in reality they joined at the hip in second grade and never separated. Keith was lonely when he was younger, although he never liked to admit it; he had Shiro, and that was all he thought he needed up until he became friends with Lance. Lance was the first person to invite him to their house, the first person he had a sleepover with, the first person he could really call a best friend. A few years later, of course, came Hunk and Pidge and Matt and Allura, and now he’s close with all of them, but that was long after Lance had solidified a place in Keith’s life.

Maybe it’s _because_ they’ve known each other so long that they act the way that they do. Lance is annoying, and Keith isn’t afraid to tell him that, and Keith is a hothead, and Lance isn’t afraid to call him out on it. It’s a weird equilibrium, a give-and-take that Keith has yet to experience with any of his other friends, but it works so well for them that Keith tries not to think too much about it.

Other people, though, seem to. Despite the fact that they’re always together at school, people still seem surprised to find out that they hang out outside of class more days than not. Even Allura, when she first wedged her way into Shiro and Keith’s life, was confused enough about the two to ask Keith about it. Although she’d danced around the wording, Keith realized eventually that she was asking if he was _really_ friends with Lance, or if he wanted Lance to leave him alone. Keith was quick to assure her that, no, the friendship was mutual, and that Lance knew he wasn’t serious half the time.

She accepted it eventually, as everyone does after they find out, but every time it happens, it makes Keith aware of something: that he and Lance aren’t, maybe, “normal” best friends. That maybe best friends aren’t supposed to tease each other that much, or get in that many petty arguments, or sit that close right after telling the other off. Keith doesn’t know, but sometimes it makes him wonder…are they as close as they say they are, as Keith thinks they are? Or is Keith just reading too much into it?

 

\--

 

_meet me in the theater at lunch ;)_

 

Keith gets the text ten minutes before the bell lets him out of class. Lance doesn’t elaborate more, and when Keith shoots him a response asking why exactly he’s in the theater during lunch instead of at their normal table, he receive no reply. Keith sighs, hikes his backpack up on his shoulder, and wanders into the theater, half knowing it’s going to be something ridiculous.

Lance is there when he enters, leaning against the stage with one hand shoved in his jeans pocket casually, the other holding his phone. He’s typing quickly, so immersed in whatever it is he’s doing that he doesn’t notice Keith’s presence until they’re only a few feet away. The theater is empty besides the two of them.

“Oh!” Lance looks up finally, grinning when he realizes who it is. He locks his phone and shoves it in his back pocket. “What took you so long?”

“We only got out for lunch, like, a minute ago.”

“A minute too long,” Lance says easily. He turns around and starts walking; Keith follows him hesitantly.

“Why the sudden switch in lunch spot?” Keith asks from a few steps behind. Their steps echo around the theater, showcasing their privacy.

“It’s only for today.” They stop at the door that leads to backstage, and Lance holds it open for Keith to walk through, gesturing for him to continue. He does, turning narrowed eyes to Lance. They’ve been friends for long enough that Keith knows when Lance is being weird or when he’s hiding something, and the grin he’s wearing right now is definitely his “I’m up to something you may or may not like” look. Charming, but it sends Keith into a preemptive exasperation. He can already feel the headache he’s going to get from…whatever this is.

“What are you up to?” Keith asks cautiously. Lance lets the door close behind them and starts down the hallway, leading Keith around a corner.

“Nothing,” he says. “Why do you always assume I’m up to something?”

“Because you almost always are.”

“Okay—“ He stops and turns to Keith as if to protest, but at the raised eyebrow Keith sends him, he pauses. “I mean, okay, _yeah_ , _usually_ I am, but you also usually end up having fun, so it’s fine. And I promise this time it’s nothing bad.”

“You sound unsure of yourself.”

Lance snorts. He stops in front of another door, one Keith hasn’t been through before. Keith doesn’t hang out in the theater that often, mostly because he has no reason to; Lance is almost always in the school’s annual plays, and he’s taken every available Drama class the past three years that was offered to him, but Keith usually only comes around here for performances, where he’s sitting in the audience and therefore _not_ romping around backstage. He looks at the door curiously, because Lance isn’t opening it, he’s just standing there with that grin on his face as if waiting for Keith to say something.

Keith does. “What?”

“Before we go in,” Lance says, which is when Keith is one hundred percent certain he’s about to get up to some fuck shit, “you have to swear not to tell anyone.”

“Lance, if you’re doing something illegal—“

“It’s not _illegal_ , Jesus Christ, how well do you _know_ me? I just can’t have you going around and letting everyone in school know about it, okay? Otherwise people’ll be coming here all the time and it’ll take the fun away.”

Keith crosses his arms over his chest, fighting the urge to sigh in exasperation. He nods. “Fine. I swear I won’t tell anyone about, uh, whatever it is you’re getting into.”

Lance grins. “Good. Prepare to be amazed.”

He opens the door far too dramatically—but honestly what else would Keith expect at this point?—and Keith is glad to find that, no, there’s nothing illegal going on. It’s just a room, but when Keith steps inside, he sees that there’s a couch, two bean bag chairs, a flat screen TV, what might be a DVD player, a mini fridge, a small desk piled with miscellaneous things including a box of Domino’s pizza and two liters of soda, and a small microwave that’s currently cooking popcorn. Residing in the bean bag chairs is Hunk and Pidge, Pidge with her laptop curled up close to her chest as she types, Hunk with a bowl of popcorn in his lap.

“Oh, hey Lance!” Hunk smiles at them when they walk in, and Lance closes the door behind him and Keith with a smug grin. “Hey, Keith!”

“Uh, hey.” Keith takes a step into the room, eyebrows furrowed. There are fairy lights strung up behind Pidge’s head. “Uh, what exactly am I looking at right now?”

“Our movie room,” Pidge answers easily. She doesn’t look up from her laptop, her hand stretching out for the bowl of popcorn and flailing around blindly before Hunk passes the bowl to her.

“Your movie room,” Keith repeats slowly.

“Yep. Do you get why we can’t have you going around telling people about this?” Lance makes himself comfortable on the couch and pats the spot next to him. “You can put your backpack down, you know. We’re gonna watch _The Lion King_ , if you’re up for staying.”

Keith lets his backpack slide to the ground hesitantly, still not quite sure what to make of this. “You guys just come in here and watch movies during lunch?”

“Usually it’s during study hall,” Hunk says. “But since we have it right after this, we figured we’d get a head start on it today, you know?”

“This is _all you do_ during study hall?!”

“Pretty much.” Pidge shoves a handful of popcorn in her mouth and finally looks up from her laptop. Her hair is thrown in loose ponytail at the nape of her neck, squished against the chair where she’s leaning back. “Why do you look so shocked? We told you about it before. I _know_ Lance’s mentioned it more than once, he never shuts up about it.”

“I do too,” Lance protests.

Keith steps over his backpack and moves to sit next to Lance on the couch. “Um, I don’t remember you guys ever mentioning it.”

“Aw, what? I told you about it, like, last week!” Lance frowns and elbows him gently. Across from the couch, the microwave beeps that their second batch of popcorn is finished.

“I didn’t realize you meant, like… _this_.”

“What’d you think I was talking about when I said that we just watched movies during study hall?”

“I thought you meant you, like, watched it on Pidge’s laptop in a corner somewhere or something, I don’t know! I didn’t think you meant you had a _secret room_ you disappeared to! How are you even allowed to do this? Whose TV is that anyway?”

“It’s Mr. Curtis’s,” Pidge answers.

“He just let you _use his TV_?”

Hunk shrugs. “It was in storage. He wasn’t using it, so he said we could.”

Everyone is so nonchalant about this. Keith is still trying to wrap his head around the fact that they’re allowed to be in here at all.

“What soda’d you get this time?” Lance leans across Keith to ask Hunk. Hunk gets up from his seat in his bean bag chair, going to take out the second bag of popcorn and dump it in the now-empty popcorn bowl.

“Dr. Pepper and Coke,” he says.

“Aww man, I thought we were getting Fanta this time?”

“You’re the _only_ one who likes Fanta,” Pidge says.

“Not true! Keith, back me up here!”

Keith looks between Lance, Hunk, and Pidge, pausing. Hunk pulls out a stack of blue plastic cups and goes about pouring soda for everyone while Pidge gets up and retrieves the second bowl of popcorn.

“I’m with Pidge on this one,” he says. Lance groans when Pidge grins, reaching over to offer Keith a fist bump. He accepts it. The room is small enough that they only have to take a few steps before they’re in each other’s business, but that’s mostly because ninety percent of the floor space is occupied by furniture.

“You were supposed to have my back, man.” Lance flops over dramatically, holding his heart as if he’s been shot, and his head falls limply to Keith’s shoulder. His hair tickles Keith’s shoulder. “Traitor.”

Keith rolls his eyes. “If anyone should feel betrayed right now, it should be me.”

“What, why?”

“You didn’t think to mention that you have a secret room you guys go to watch movies in? That thought never crossed your mind?”

“We’ve totally told you about it before!” Lance defends. He still has his head on Keith’s shoulder, so Keith has to strain to look at him fully. “You just brushed it off every time, I guess. And besides, it crossed my mind _today_ , didn’t it?”

Keith hums in agreement. “And how long have you had this?”

Pidge settles back down in her bean bag again, the newly refilled popcorn bowl held close to her chest. “Since last semester.”

“We had a big moving in party in October,” Hunk says.

“Yeah, don’t you remember when we were all at school way earlier than usual?”

“ _No,_ I don’t remember that.” Keith huffs.

“Well, that happened. You can thank me for the couch.” Lance pulls himself off of Keith’s shoulder only to send him a wink. Lance has always been way too good at doing that. The motion is too fluid, it’s almost creepy.

“Can I put in the movie now?” Hunk asks where he’s standing behind the TV, fumbling with the DVD player. Keith starts to ask where they got the movie or the DVD player but thinks better of it, deciding instead to lean back on the couch and let it be.

He still doesn’t really understand how they did all of this, or why he didn’t know about it at all until today. When Pidge, Hunk, and Lance had all been conveniently placed in the same fourth-period study hall, Keith had been a little jealous, mostly since he doesn’t have time for a study hall with such a full schedule, and he misses out on some of the best shenanigans his friends get into, if their inside jokes and eventful retellings are anything to go by. He hadn’t realized the enormity of these shenanigans, apparently.

“Get it goin’, my man.” Lance waves a hand at Hunk as if to motion he continue. “Pass me a drink, too, please?”

“Sure thing.” Hunk puts the DVD in and waits to start the movie before handing Lance an already full cup. He gives Keith one, too, although Keith hadn’t asked for anything, and flips the lights off. They all settle back into their respective seats as the previews start. Lance has no problem with making himself comfortable against Keith, leaning their shoulders against each other, slumped so far down that Keith is taller than him for once. He switches periodically between laying his head on Keith’s bicep and sitting up to comment on Simba’s adventures, which Keith doesn’t mind as much as he lets on.

When the bell rings forty minutes later to signal the end of lunch, Keith reluctantly pulls himself from the small pile he and Lance had made. He stops at the door with his backpack on one shoulder. “I’ll...see you guys later.”

They say their goodbyes, Hunk going to lengths to offer him a hug before he disappears for fourth. Keith takes the offer and pretends, as he leaves, that he isn’t envious that they get to stay like this, huddled in companionable silence with a Disney movie playing, while Keith has to suffer through Physics. He can hear Pidge making a joke about the movie as he’s leaving, and he just barely catches a glimpse of Lance laughing before the door closes.

It happens again, then, too: the fear that maybe Keith is reading too much into things. That maybe he isn’t as close with Lance as he wants to think he is.

 

\--

 

Some of that fear comes from middle school.

Most young teenagers start experimenting and getting into trouble at the tail end of middle school—at least, that’s when Keith’s _seen_ other prepubescent boys do most of their stupid shenanigans. It carries over later often, but he remembers the beginning of it then.

Keith was, more or less, like every other eighth-grade boy, which is to say: curious. He was a little more scared to try anything than everyone else seemed to be—he shied away from drugs and alcohol and parties that got too crowded, for more than one reason—but in other areas, he was…well, interested. Seventh grade was when he had his first crush on a boy.

In eighth grade, Lance asked to kiss him.

It was meant to be some kind of friend thing, getting their first kiss out of the way so they wouldn’t have to carry that around for the next who-knew-how-many-years—especially in Keith’s case, who was much less interested in dating, partially because of the trans-in-a-conservative-city thing, partially because he just didn’t care that much. It was hard enough to find _friends_ here that would accept him—he was damn lucky he even found Lance, who was so willing to accept and respect his identity even before Keith was—so he figured there wasn’t much point in trying to cross the romantic-relationship-bridge before he got there. In hindsight, had he declined the offer and told Lance he wasn’t interested, he probably wouldn’t have had his first kiss for years afterwards.

Lance, in perfect juxtaposition with Keith, cared a _lot_. He chased after girls, spent hours reading up on pick-up lines, perfected his skin care routine and cried his eyes out at romantic comedies. He wanted a girlfriend more than what seemed like anything, and he confided in Keith about this often.

“I’m _fourteen_ and I’ve never even been on a _date_ , Keith!” he complained on more than one occasion, flopping himself down across Keith’s bedroom floor and throwing his arms in the air dramatically. On this particular night, Keith and Shiro’s dad was out and Shiro was hanging out with Allura and a few other friends, so Keith and Lance had the house to themselves. “Why am I destined to die alone?!”

“You’re being ridiculous,” Keith said, rolling his eyes.

“I am _not!_ I’m being perfectly reasonable. Did you see how Allura laughed at me the other day, dude?! There’s your proof! I’m going to be forever alone.”

“Allura’s also two years older than you.”

“So? Are you saying older women can’t be into me?”

“I’m _saying_ she’s practically in love with Shiro,” Keith said. After a pause, he admitted, “And, yeah, she probably wouldn’t want to date a younger guy anyway, it’s kind of weird. She could be our babysitter.”

Lance huffed, pushing himself up on his elbows. “We don’t _need_ a babysitter. We’ll be able to _drive_ soon. One more year and we’re out of middle school.”

He left that hanging in the air for a while, seeming to retreat to his thoughts. Keith pulled his laptop out in the meantime and was just opening up YouTube when Lance turned to him.

Keith felt those blue eyes staring at him for a long minute. Finally, he gave in to what he knew Lance wanted him to do and looked up. “What? Do I have something on my face?”

“You’re gay, right?”

Reflexively, Keith tensed, and he opened another tab and pretended that Google had the most interesting home page he’d ever seen while Lance backtracked.

“I mean, like—you were saying the other day that you think you might be gay, which means, you know, since you’re a guy, that you like guys…”

“Thanks for telling me the definition of ‘gay’, Lance, I really needed it,” Keith mumbled.

“Wait, don’t get offended! I have a point, I promise!”

“Just get to it then!”

“You like _guys_ , and…I mean, _I’m_ a guy—“

“If you’re trying to ask me if I have a crush on you right now I _will_ throw you out of my house.”

“That’s not what I was trying to get at!”

Keith shoved his laptop aside in his frustration, throwing his hands up in the air. Lance always did this, pulling a stronger emotional response from him than anyone else could. He’d been able to do that since they were kids. “Just say what you’re trying to get at, then!”

“I’m trying to ask if you wanna kiss!”

It was a good thing the house was empty except for the two of them, Keith thought, because Lance’s yell definitely echoed around the whole building. They stared at each other, both red-faced and out of breath from yelling, and Keith blinked.

“Wait, _what_?”

“Like, for practice and stuff,” Lance rushed to explain. “We’re best friends and we’re both probably not gonna get kissed any time soon—“

Keith narrowed his eyes. “What are you—“

“I don’t mean that in a mean way, I just mean, like, you know there probably aren’t that many gay guys at our school, and there probably won’t be until everyone else starts figuring things out and stuff which probably won’t be until high school, I’m not saying you’re not attractive or that no one would wanna date you or kiss you—I mean, hell, _I’m_ sitting here wanting to kiss you right now…”

For the second time, they just stared at each other. Lance seemed to realize how that sounded.

“Not as in—I mean I just want to—to try kissing so we can get it out of the way! Like, practice and stuff so we’ll both know what we’re doing when we actually do it!” His hands flew in the air at a million miles a minute, fluttering around him anxiously. Lance always moved a lot when he was nervous. “You don’t have to do it, obviously, it was stupid to ask anyway, I just thought I would…”

Keith thought about it, even as his face heated up the longer he did. Kissing Lance. As…practice? That was something friends would do, right? Just to get it out of the way? And it wouldn’t be weird because they were so close, so…

Plus, Keith couldn’t deny that the idea of kissing another guy was an appealing one. He was about ninety percent sure he was gay—or at the very least attracted to boys—but he figured it didn’t hurt to…make sure?

“It’s not… _that_ stupid,” he said.

Lance snorted sarcastically. “Thanks for the reassurance.”

“We can.” Keith paused. “If you still want to.”

It took a moment for Lance to realize what he said, and when he did, his eyes widened comically. “You’re serious?”

Keith shrugged. “Yeah.”

“Like, for real?”

“ _Yes_ , Lance, but if you don’t stop asking me I’m gonna take it back—“

“No, no, I’ll stop, I’ll stop!” Lance held his hands up as if in surrender, laughing nervously. His face was just as red as Keith’s, if not more, but he was the first one to move forward, shuffling across the floor awkwardly so the two were facing each other. Keith sat with his back against the side of his bed, his laptop forgotten to the side, Lance in front of him. Neither of them moved again for another tense moment.

Keith avoided looking Lance head on, mostly because he wasn’t sure he could go through with it if they were making eye contact.

“I thought you liked girls,” he mumbled, feeling his stomach drop as the words left his mouth. He knew Lance liked girls; that wasn’t a secret to anybody. It was the implication of it—that Lance, who had only thus far shown an interest in _girls_ would want kiss _Keith_ and no other guy...what that implied: that was what made his stomach tie up in knots and his fingertips tingle.

Logically, Keith knew that there was no ulterior motive behind Lance’s choice, no underlying disbelief or discrediting of Keith’s identity. He knew it was only because they were best friends, even before Lance said it. But for those few seconds preceding Lance’s answer, he forgot about that. His hands burned like he’d shoved them in a pot of boiling water. By eighth grade, Keith had become rather familiar with this feeling—this anxiousness.  

Lance, oblivious to what Keith was so scared of, only shrugged. “I do. But you’re my best friend, so…”

He said it like it was the obvious conclusion to come to, to just deal with kissing another guy because that’s what his best friend just so happened to be, even if he himself wasn’t interested in other guys. The answer did something to assuage Keith’s fear, but he still frowned.

“Won’t you, like…be grossed out or something then?”

“No.”

“What? Why not?”

“It’s just you.” Lance paused. He took in the tense in Keith’s shoulders, the way he’d suddenly gone on edge, noticing the change in mood for the first time. “Unless this is your roundabout way of telling me you changed your mind—“

“No, Jesus, stop worrying about it! But—I _will_ if you don’t actually do something—“

“I’m trying!” Lance huffed indignantly. “I just…don’t really know _how_ , exactly…”

That part was true. While they were talking, Lance had been moving closer subtly—although not subtly enough for Keith not to notice it and get nervous again. Now Lance sat a few inches in front of him, their knees touching, unsure of where to go from there. Apparently the thousands upon thousands of romance movies Lance had watched in his lifetime hadn’t done much to prepare him for the real thing.

(Not that this was a “romance” thing, Keith reminded himself. It was. A friend thing. An experiencing-things-with-your-friend thing. Yeah.)

“We should…probably get closer,” Keith offered, wiping his sweaty palms on his pants. The fire had stopped, but left this gross, jittery nervousness in its wake. He forced any fear out of his mind as Lance nodded in agreement, and they moved towards each other.

Keith hadn’t realized that it was possible to get any closer than they already were, but they kept moving, and he could feel his heart in his throat, the sweat on his palms only getting worse. He pressed his clenched fists into the fabric of his jeans a second time, to keep from touching Lance with his gross palms. Even if it _wasn’t_ a “romance” thing, he still didn’t want it to be any grosser or weirder for Lance than it had to be. It was probably already going to be kind of weird, having his first kiss be with another guy when he wasn’t even gay. God, Keith felt worse about that the more he thought about it.

“I’m going to lean in now,” Lance said.

“I’m like ninety percent sure it’ll weird your girlfriend out if you _announce_ what you’re doing the first time you kiss her,” Keith mumbled, but he didn’t get out any more complaints, mostly because he was kissing Lance then.

It wasn’t…nice, exactly. But it wasn’t gross, either. Just…odd. Foreign. Almost boring, because neither of them were doing anything; they just sat there with their faces pressed together for a few seconds, unmoving, before pulling away and staring at each other, wide-eyed and blushing heavily.

Lance cleared his throat. When he said, “So, how was that?” his voice cracked on the second syllable. He cleared his throat a second time, looking away from Keith embarrassedly.

“Not that bad,” Keith admitted. He was surprised when his own voice didn’t crack. He clenched and unclenched his fists on his jeans.

“Not _that_ bad? Seriously? That’s it?”

He shrugged. “It could probably be better.”

“I’m the only person you’ve kissed, how do you know that’s not the best kiss you’ll ever get?”

“That’d be pretty sad if that’s the best kiss I ever get.”

Lance gasped, affronted, and the moment was gone, the awkwardness forgotten as they fell back into their normal routine of bantering. Keith wiped the sweat away, let his heart climb down out of his throat, and didn’t allow anything to get weird or awkward between them, even _if_ he replayed the scene over and over in his head as he fell asleep that night.

The days following that, neither of them brought up what happened, and Lance didn’t ask to kiss Keith again. Things were normal, and the event was forgotten, left to be a funny story to reminisce over months down the line, and Keith didn’t ask to kiss Lance again, even when he realized he might’ve wanted to.

 

\--

 

“Lance.”

“Hm?”

“Do you have to play that so loud? I’m trying to work.”

“Since when’ve you had trouble concentrating with music playing?” Lance asks, even as he reaches over to his phone, plugged into a small, portable speaker, and turns the volume down like Keith asked. It’s much better like that.

“Since forever,” Keith says. “And thank you.”

“Uh, what? But you, like, always listen to Fall Out Boy and whatever when we’re doing Pre-calc together.”

“No?”

Keith doesn’t see Lance’s face because he’s looking at his paper and writing notes for his history class methodically, but he feels Lance tap his foot gently to get his attention, and when he finally stops and looks up, Lance is squinting at him, as if the answer to this suddenly noticed Mandela effect is written on Keith’s face.

“What?” Keith demands stiffly. He doesn’t like being stared at, even by people he’s close with.

“There is _no_ way that’s true,” Lance insists. “I know you! You always listen to music when we’re doing stuff or just hanging out! If you don’t like my music you can just tell me, I promise I won’t be offended.” Even as he says it, he crosses his arms and fakes like he’s holding back tears, although the soreness in his voice is definitely genuine.

Keith rolls his eyes. “It has nothing to do with your music taste.”

“Then what is it?”

“I just need to focus. That’s all.”

“Liar.” Lance nudges Keith’s foot again, a little harder this time. Keith nudges back. Normally, this would escalate into a game of footsies because neither of them ever knows when to let something be (and because if Keith doesn’t win, Lance will gloat about it and hold it over his head for the next week at _least_ ), but Lance, surprisingly, doesn’t push it after that. He puts the book he’d been holding down and lays down on his stomach, facing Keith.

They’re in Lance’s bedroom, the door closed with the intent of making it easier to concentrate. Lance’s house is always full, always loud; with an eight-year-old brother, a thirteen-year-old sister, his parents, and his grandmother all in one house, it’s almost impossible to be alone completely. The walls are thin and don’t do much to soften the noise, but it helps that the door’s closed. Keith is surprised, in all honesty, that none of Lance’s siblings have barged in so far.

“Hey,” Lance says. He puts his chin in his palms, his elbows on the floor, as he waits for Keith to respond. Keith sighs and sets his homework aside, finally admitting that he’s not going to get anything done right now.

“What?”

“Did you hear about this weekend?”

“…No. What about it?”

“Matt’s having a show Saturday night, but it’s supposed to, like, be a big deal this time. Pidge won’t say it but I think she wants us to go. You up for it?”

Pidge’s brother and Shiro’s best friend, Matt, is in an on-and-off band with a few other guys that Keith barely ever remembers the names of. The last time Keith heard about it, the band was on hiatus, but evidently they’re back on again. Why they’re so finicky about it, Keith doesn’t know, but Pidge is unconditionally supportive of her brother, so she always advocates that everyone go to the few-and-far-between shows the band puts on. Usually Keith doesn’t mind—Matt’s actually really good, and he always likes the few songs they play—but if it’s supposed to be a “big deal”…

“I don’t know,” he admits. “I’ve got a lot of homework this weekend…”

“Aww, what? It’s Tuesday, dude, how do you know that?”

“I was gonna start studying for the ACT this weekend,” Keith mumbles. It’s not really a lie, but he can’t help looking away guiltily as if it is.

“You can study on _Sunday_. Sunday’s are the designated homework day, anyway. You should be out partying Saturdays!”

“I don’t know if I’d consider a few people in Pidge’s backyard a ‘party’.”

“Close enough.” Lance sits up, pulling himself off the floor so he and Keith are at eye level again. He looks at Keith for a moment as if trying to find something in Keith’s expression. His eyebrows furrow. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Keith says, which is true. There isn’t anything wrong. He doesn’t know where Lance got that idea.

Lance doesn’t seem to buy that answer. “You’re usually up for Matt’s shows, like, right away, especially if Pidge wants us there. What’s up? Is something different?”

“Nothing’s _wrong_ , Lance,” Keith insists. “I just…I need to start studying for the ACT, that’s all. I’m…stressed out. I can’t spend all my weekends hanging out anymore.”

Outside Lance’s door, his sister calls, “LANCE, KEITH! DINNER’S READY!”

“WE’LL BE DOWN THERE IN A SECOND!” Lance yells back. He turns back to Keith, frowning. It’s obvious that he isn’t believing a single thing that Keith says. That’s the frustrating part about being friends with Lance for so long: he always knows when Keith is lying or when he’s only sort of telling the truth, even when Keith doesn’t. Lance is a lot more perceptive than he likes to let on.

“Do you want to study together?”

It isn’t what Keith had expected him to ask; he’d anticipated more badgering, probably, either to get him to tell the truth or to make him agree to go to the show this weekend on Pidge’s behalf. Keith blinks. “Like, for the ACT?”

“Yeah. We can be in a study group together—and Hunk can come too, and Pidge can tag along if she wants since she’s probably gonna wanna get a big head start on the whole thing anyway.”

“We already do that here,” Keith says, gesturing to their homework now strewn across Lance’s bedroom floor. His Pre-calc work sits half-finished a foot away from him, next to Lance’s dog-eared copy of _The Sound and the Fury._

“Well, _yeah_ , but we could go specifically for ACT and SAT stuff, you know? Like, buy one of those prep books they sell all over the place and work through it together at, like, Starbucks or something. It’d be fun.”

“That’s not generally your definition of ‘fun’.”

“Anything with you is fun,” Lance shrugs.

“THE FOOD’S GETTING COLD!” his sister yells outside their door.

“WE’RE COMING, CALM DOWN!”

Keith can’t help but laugh, watching Lance interact with his siblings. At the noise, Lance turns back to Keith and grins when he realizes what Keith is laughing at. He stands up, brushes imaginary dirt off his jeans, and holds his hands out to help Keith up. Keith takes the offer.

“So, yeah. We should do that, if you’re worried about it that much. I kinda need to do that too anyway, so…might as well do it together, right?” He shrugs, starting for the door. Keith follows him, still smiling softly.

“Yeah. Sure. We can do that.”

“Nice! I’ll get Hunk involved too. It’ll make everything more bearable, you know?”

Keith kind of hums in agreement. As they’re heading down stairs for dinner, Keith stops Lance with his hand on the railing. “Actually, Lance, I think I’m up for Saturday.”

“What, seriously?”

He nods.

Lance grins, showing off perfect teeth. It’s the product of middle school braces, Keith knows, and he can’t help but think they did their job well; Lance really does have a nice smile. “In that case, I’ll let Pidge know. It’s a date!”

“Yeah,” Keith mumbles once Lance has turned back away. “A date.”

 

\--

 

There’s a reason Keith doesn’t like parties.

He’s never been diagnosed with claustrophobia, but there’s something about bodies packed together that he can’t handle, something about the warmth of strangers around him, recklessly jostling into his side and brushing against him and talking so loudly that he can barely hear himself think—it’s all too much, too much. It makes his throat close up and his skin prickle and his stomach turn. There, his body is wrong, so wrong, even more than it usually feels, and there are so many eyes, and every word is swallowed and drowned out in the roaring in his ears.

The first time he had a panic attack, he was at a party.

He was thirteen and still getting used to the way his name sounded on other people’s tongues. Lance had been invited to a birthday party, hosted by a boy in their class Keith didn’t like and Lance didn’t care for. But the boy’s parents weren’t home that weekend, he said, and it was going to be a _real_ party, the kind with dancing and alcohol and cigarettes stolen from the boy’s big brother, the kind that Lance had recently taken an interest in.

And because it was a “real” party, this meant pretty much everyone was invited, including Keith. It took a week of Lance’s begging before Keith finally gave up and agreed to attend—only, he said, because Lance was going. A part of himself wanted to go just to see what the hype was about. The other part was scared that Lance would like it and he wouldn’t, and he’d get left behind somehow because of it.

He didn’t like it. Nothing actually _happened_ there with anyone—although rumors of the night would get retold and misconstrued and rewritten into something else entirely—but he didn’t like it. Couldn’t stand it. Maybe it was the way Lance disappeared halfway through the night to talk to some girls Keith knew he’d been obsessed with recently, or the way Keith felt when others looked at him for too long, like they were scrutinizing him, picking apart the way his jeans clung to his hips, the way his shirt didn’t quite fit his chest, the way he stood in the corner with one hip jutted out before he consciously moved it, switching his weight from one foot to the other self-consciously. It didn’t matter if anyone was actually paying him any attention. No matter what, it felt like he was being watched.

Someone greeted him. They didn’t use “Keith.” Someone started to talk about him, he could hear it—the way the soft “sh” left their mouth half-bitten, the awkward side glance they sent him as if he couldn’t see it, the way some swallowed the word as it was still alive and others let it escape before awkwardly remedying it with a mumbled _he_.

Keith’s binder felt so tight around his chest. The fabric that had at one point made him feel so at home—what had made him cry the first time he put it on for how _right_ it felt to see himself in the mirror—now only suffocated him. Some invisible fire licked up his fingers, spreading from his knuckles, his wrist, his elbow up to his shoulder. _She, she, she._ He needed to get out, he need fresh air. He mumbled some apology and pushed his way towards the front door. One last, devastating question of _what’s wrong with_ her _?_ followed him as he escaped—and sealed his fate.

The front door slammed shut behind him. He collapsed to his knees on an unfamiliar porch, gasping desperately, head spinning, panic only rising. Was he dying? He needed water, he needed—he needed something, he didn’t know, God, _was he having a stroke_? He didn’t know what the symptoms for a stroke were, shit, he needed to get help or something, he…

“Keith?” Lance was behind him. There was a hand on his shoulder, Lance’s, when did he get here? “Holy—are you okay?! What’s wrong?!”

Keith stood up. Hands on his shoulders. Lance’s eyebrows were furrowed, face pinched in in worry and panic, and Keith opened his mouth to speak. It was hard when he couldn’t breathe, though. “I don’t know—I just started—“

“Okay, okay, Keith, calm down,” Lance said. _Calm down calm down._ “Take—uh, just take deep breaths. You’re hyperventilating. Just remember how to breathe, okay? I’ll—I’ll do it with you, alright? Inhale…”

Keith inhaled with Lance, and exhaled as he was told. Again again. _Calm down. Breathe. You’re fine. It’s fine._ For someone who didn’t know what was going on, Lance was pretty okay at this. Over the following years he’d get much better at it, not always just for Keith. As his siblings grew up, they would need his experience; Hunk, too, on some occasions. Lance would become the expert at talking people through panic attacks.

It took a few minutes, but after Keith had finally calmed down, they sat on the porch steps pressed side-to-side with Keith hunched over, head in his hands. Lance alternated between laying a hand on Keith’s shoulder and laying it on his knee, like he couldn’t tell which was better for comforting but still wanted to do something to help. For a long while, neither said anything. Lance must have been dying to know what happened, why Keith was outside and why he’d freaked out like that all of the sudden, but he didn’t ask.

Keith said, finally, “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” Lance answered immediately. “There’s nothing to apologize for.”

“I took you away from the party.” _From those girls,_ Keith thought, but didn’t say. He knew that if he said it, Lance would say it was fine, that that wasn’t as important. Lance would always put his friends’ safety first, above anything else.

“Dude, I promise you it is _so_ not a big deal.” Lance knocked his knee into Keith’s gently. Keith knocked back after a moment. “I was running out of stuff to talk about anyway, I would’ve just made an idiot of myself if I’d stayed there. More importantly, what’s up with you? What happened to make you—just, freak out like that? I heard you just ran outside suddenly, but no one mentioned that you weren’t okay…”

“Nothing,” Keith answered quickly, then backtracked. “Something. I-I don’t know. I just got really upset about, it doesn’t even matter what, and I went outside to get fresh air and I just…that happened.”

_She_ and _her_ and a name he was still fighting to shed remained in his memory, peers’ mouths forming the syllables without even thinking about it, some not bothering to correct themselves, some not remembering. The dichotomy of _boys_ and _girls_ even in places where it didn’t matter, like at parties. Keith had been so hyperaware of everything, everything he did, everything he said and how he said it, the octaves too high he spoke in, the way he carried himself and the way his clothes fell across him. He was aware of all of it, and it hurt so _bad_. When he’d looked it up, there was a name for it: dysphoria. He rolled the name around in his head, trying it out. Dysphoria. Dysphoria.

“I don’t know,” he ended up saying. “I’m just…feeling gross. And I freaked out. I don’t know.”

He saw Lance watch him from the corner of his eye. It wasn’t nosy or scrutinizing, the way Lance looked at him, only concerned. Keith would have been too, if he saw his friend suddenly hyperventilating for no discernible reason. Keith himself had been close to calling an ambulance if it hadn’t stopped quickly enough.

“’Feeling gross’? How so?” Lance asked, not unkindly, but Keith still tensed up under the question. Lance was the first person Keith ever told about how he _felt_ —about how inexplicably wrong his body felt, how the name he was given hurt so much on his tongue, how nothing felt right or good or _okay_ anymore—but somehow, it was still uncomfortable to talk about to him. He didn’t even like talking to Shiro about stuff like this.

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Just. Gross.”

“Gross,” Lance repeated.

Keith nodded, an awkward bob of his head. Lance spread his legs out in front of him, stretching to touch his toes. Up until a few months ago, Keith had been the taller of the two, but when Lance hit thirteen he shot up suddenly. Eventually Keith would catch up almost to Lance’s height again, but in seventh grade, Lance seemed so much taller.

“I guess that means you don’t really wanna talk about it, then,” Lance said, sitting back up.

“Not really.”

“That’s fair,” he laughed. “Do you think…I mean, do you wanna go back inside? Since you’re, you know, okay now? Or—I mean, if you want I can ask my mom to come pick us up. We can just go hang out at my house if you’d rather do that. Estefania rented some movies the other day that we could watch. God knows she doesn’t have time to watch ‘em all, anyway.”

Keith tried for a smile. “Yeah, that sounds good.”

“Cool!” Lance stood up, brushing imaginary dirt off his pants, and held a hand out for Keith to take. Keith did, and Lance pulled him to his feet. “I’ll call her and tell her to come get us and then let someone know we’re leaving. Are you okay out here if I leave or…?”

“It’s fine,” Keith said.

“Then I’ll be back in a sec.”

Lance disappeared back into the house. Alone, Keith took a deep breath, inhaling then exhaling slowly, slowly. The guilt at making Lance leave the party would sink in eventually, but for now he was only grateful that Lance was willing to go home with him. Lance didn’t _have_ to do that; Keith could’ve gotten his dad to come get him, and it would’ve been fine. But he didn’t want to be alone right now, and Lance must have picked up on that.

They did end up going back to Lance’s house and watching his older sister’s movies, but they only got through one before Lance fell asleep, Keith following soon after. The guilt sunk in as Keith was drifting into unconsciousness, the fear that he had taken Lance away from his other friends, that Keith had ruined the night. It could not find him in sleep, thankfully, but it would be there when he woke, and many days after.

 

\--

 

More than a “few people” show up to Pidge’s house that Saturday. The driveway is packed with throngs of cars Keith doesn’t recognize, parking up the Holt’s street wherever there’s room. He doesn’t know what it is about this show that has so many people turning up, why Matt’s band seems to have suddenly taken off. If Keith weren’t selfish, he would be happy for them, excited that they’re finally getting recognition even if it’s only local—but there, inside the house, suffocating, it’s hard for him to feel anything except uncomfortable.

The Holt’s house is large, with a patio and pool almost half the size, and that’s where the show is taking place. They have a small set up, sitting as close to the pool as they can get without risking damage to the equipment, and when Keith gets there, Matt is behind his laptop, hooked up to the speakers as he plays background noise before the show actually starts. His band members, the ones Keith can never remember the names of, are messing with their own equipment and talking together a few feet away.

Keith is debating asking him where Pidge is when Matt notices him, looking up from his computer and waving Keith over. He grins at Keith, the same grin that rubbed off on Shiro from years of friendship. “Hey, you looking for Katie?”

“Uh, yeah. Have you seen her?”

Matt nods. “Last time I saw her, she was inside with Lance and Hunk getting ready to bring out food.”

Keith glances towards the house, where he can see in through the patio doors at the few people standing around inside. A lot of them look to be college-aged. Matt’s friends, probably. “Alright, thanks.”

“No problem. Are you staying to watch us play?”

He nods, and Matt grins wider. Keith’s never quite sure how to act around him because even though Matt is Shiro’s best friend and Pidge is Keith’s, Keith and Matt have never really interacted without their siblings there as a buffer. He thinks that Matt likes him alright, maybe. He hopes so at least.

Inside, Keith finds Pidge, Lance, and Hunk in the kitchen upstairs, standing around untouched stacks of pizza boxes. Lance looks like he’s telling them a story, gesturing widely with his arms as his mouth moves a mile a minute.

“So, we’re standing in line, right?” Keith hears Lance say as he comes up behind him. This way, Lance can’t see him, although he almost hits Keith several times with his arms as he speaks. “And this girl behind us starts talking us up, you know, and I can’t really tell if she’s just like super friendly or actually trying to—“

“Hey.”

“Christ!” Lance yelps, jumping and swiveling around to glare at Keith, who can’t help it when he starts laughing. “Jesus, Keith, you _scared_ me!”

“I noticed,” he says, still grinning. Lance narrows his eyes at him in a glare, face red.

“Don’t laugh! You would’ve jumped like that too if _you_ had someone sneaking around you like that. And you guys, c’mon!” He turns around to Hunk and Pidge, who are snickering quietly—well, Hunk is, but Pidge isn’t bothering to be discreet in how funny she thinks it is. “You’re all horrible,” Lance decides.

“We didn’t even do anything,” Hunk says. The laughing has stopped, but he’s still grinning.

“All of you know what you did, and you’re horrible.” Lance sniffs indignantly. Just as quickly as he’d gotten offended, though, he forgets about it in lieu of throwing an arm around Keith’s shoulder and pulling him into the small half-circle he, Hunk, and Pidge had made. “You’re here!”

“Yeah, I’m here.” Keith squirms under Lance’s arm but doesn’t try to get out. Just readjusts them so they’re both actually comfortable. It’s nice.

“We thought you weren’t gonna show,” Pidge says in explanation. “You sure took your sweet time getting here.”

“I had to wait for Shiro to get home to take us,” Keith says. It’s not a lie, he just doesn’t tell them that Shiro had been pushing _him_ out of the door so they’d leave on time. He may or may not have dragged his feet more than necessary getting here, but he’s here now, so he thinks that’s its own achievement.

“Mhmm.” Lance finally takes his arm off from around Keith’s shoulder. Keith wishes he didn’t wish Lance hadn’t. “Anyway, we should probably get this food downstairs—“

“Stop it!” Pidge slaps Lance’s hand as it starts to open a pizza box, clearly going for a slice. “It’s not food time yet, don’t be so impatient.”

“But I’m _hungry_.”

“Sucks,” she says, and slaps his hand again when he goes for the box a second time.

“You were telling a story,” Keith reminds Lance, nudging him.

“Was I? I don’t, uh, remember.”

Keith gives him a weird look. Lance is watching the pizza boxes, reaching for them a third time. Pidge only bothers a gentle slap this time, like she’s slowly starting to give less of a damn what he does. It’s obviously to avoid Keith’s prompting, too.

“Something about a girl in line.”

“Sorry, don’t recall.”

Hunk exchanges a look with Keith, and Hunk shrugs, seeming to say _I don’t know either, man._

“Annnyway,” Lance says, “aren’t they gonna start playing soon? We should head downstairs now.” He starts out the kitchen and to the stairs before any of them have even responded.

Once he’s out of earshot, Keith asks Pidge under his breath, “What’s going on with him?”

“Hell if I know,” she shrugs. “He didn’t start acting like that ‘til just now.”

“Oh,” Keith says. He tries not to let them see how he deflates, but Hunk must notice, if the sympathetic smile he shoots Keith is anything to go by. He claps a hand on Keith’s shoulder as he heads to follow Lance out the kitchen and downstairs. It feels like there’s something he’s not telling Keith, but Keith doesn’t know how to ask that without—sounding demanding, or like he’s making a big deal out of nothing. It really _could_ be nothing, after all. He shouldn’t overthink it.

But what Keith should and shouldn’t do rarely ever influences what he _actually_ does, and he spends the next half hour watching Matt’s band play and trying to ignore the feeling in his stomach that he’s somehow done something wrong—or that Lance is keeping something from him. It isn’t like Lance has never kept something from him, he rationalizes. Even if they’re best friends, it doesn’t mean that they have to tell each other everything; God knows Keith hasn’t told _Lance_ everything.

It’s probably not a big deal.

…But Lance had intended to tell Hunk and Pidge whatever it was; he’d only start acting weird when Keith showed up. Keith watches the three of them dancing to Matt’s band—who are playing an electronic cover of _Wonderwall_ with as much ironic gusto as possible, Matt wearing a shit eating grin the whole time—from afar, trying not to feel too horribly out of place as he stands alone, holding a half-empty cup of Dr. Pepper. Lance has his head thrown back belting the lyrics, and when it gets to the chorus, he sings _Maybe you’re gonna be the one that saves me_ with un-ironic enthusiasm, his eyes crinkled at the corners and dimples showing from how hard he’s smiling. The patio is dimly lit, but somehow he looks even better than usual under shitty, faint fluorescent light, eyelashes casting shadows over his cheeks. He’s always had ridiculously long eyelashes.

Hunk laughs at Lance’s enthusiasm and mouths the lyrics too; even Pidge is going along with it, begrudgingly following her friends’ example. The song comes to an end and Matt leans into the mic, saying something about the next song that they’ll be playing, but Lance, Pidge, and Hunk are still laughing.

And Keith just stands there, a knot forming in his throat.  

**Author's Note:**

> tysm for reading if u got this far!! feedback is always Loved And Appreciated ofc. i have abt another 5k written rn for the next chapter but im not 100% sure how long itll take me to get it uploaded so be warned (my hope is soon tho)


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